Elazar Shach - Political Life

Political Life

For Shach, battling secularism and Zionism was not enough. During the years of his leadership, he also waged bitter wars against anybody he suspected of deviation from the classic Haredi path.

At the behest of Rabbi Aharon Kotler, Shach joined the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah.

Shach had been instrumental in the formation of the Sephardi Shas party, which is now under the sole spiritual leadership of his one-time ally, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.

When Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin died in 1966, Shach became president of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah until he resigned from the Moetzes after the other leading rabbis refused to follow him. Shach wrote strongly in support of every observant citizen voting. He felt that a vote not cast for the right party or candidate was effectively a vote for the wrong party and candidate. This theme is consistent in his writings from the time that the State of Israel was established.

Shas ran for the 11th Knesset in 1984, and Shach called upon his "Lithuanian" followers to vote for it in the polls, a move that many saw as key political and religious move in Shach's split with the Hasidic-controlled Agudat Israel. While initially Shas was largely under the aegis of Shach, Yosef gradually exerted control over the party, culminating in Shas' decision to support the Labor party in the 13th Knesset in 1992. On the eve of the November 1988 election, Shach officially broke away from Agudat Israel in protest at Hamodia publishing, as paid advertisements, a series of articles based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Shach criticized Schneerson for his presumed messianic aspirations. Shach wanted the Aguda party to oppose Lubavitch, however all but one (Belz) of the Hasidic sects within the party refused to back him. Shach and his followers then formed the Degel HaTorah ("Flag of Torah") party to represent the non-Hasidic Ashkenazi Haredim. Schneerson mobilized his followers to support the Agudat Israel party. While Aguda secured nearly three times the amount of votes it had in 1984, and increased its Knesset representation from two seats to five, Degel HaTorah won only two seats. After the bitter contest in the 1988 elections, Degel HaTorah agreed to work together with Agudat Israel and combine forces in the 1992 elections, under the name of United Torah Judaism, an agreement which has continued to the present. In a speech delivered before the 1992 elections, Shach said that Sephardim were still not fit for leadership, and aroused great anger among Sephardi voters. Following the elections Shach instructed Shas not to join the government, while Ovadia Yosef instructed them to join, and then an open rift broke out between the parties. Shach then declared that Shas had removed itself from the Jewish community when it joined the wicked...

Around 1995 Shach's political activity diminished, following deterioration in his health, before later ceasing altogether. Since then, the two main leaders of the Degel HaTorah party have been Rabbis Yosef Shalom Eliashiv and Aharon Leib Shteinman.

Shach was deeply opposed to Zionism, both secular and religious. He was fiercely dismissive of secular Israelis and their culture. For example, during a 1990 speech he lambasted kibbutzniks as "breeders of rabbits and pigs" who did not "know what Yom Kippur is". In the same speech he said that the Labor Party had cut themselves off from their Jewish past and wished to "seek a new Torah". Labor Party politician Yossi Beilin said Shach's speech had set back relations between religious and secular Israelis by decades. The speech was attended by Rabbis Ovadia Yosef, Yosef Shalom Eliashiv, and other haredi Rabbis. Following the speech, Rabbi Yosef also refused to allow his Shas party to join the new coalition. Shach never seemed concerned over the discord his harsh statements might cause, saying that "There is no need to worry about machlokes, because if it is done for the sake of Heaven, in the end it will endure...one is obligated to be a baal-machlokes . It is no feat to be in agreement with everybody!" Shach was also critical of democracy, once referring to it as a "cancer", adding that "only the sacred Torah is the true democracy." Shach supported the withdrawal from land under Israeli control, basing it upon the Halakhic principle of Pikuach Nefesh (" saving life"), in which the preservation of lives takes precedence over nearly all other obligations in the Torah, including those pertaining to the sanctity of land. He also criticized Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as "a blatant attempt to provoke the international community", and called on Haredim to avoid moving to such communities.

Regarding his involvement in politics, Shach once told a student, "I get no enjoyment whatsoever out of all this political activism; I get enjoyment only when I can do good for a Jew."

Approximately 200,000 people attended Shach's funeral, and after his death, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon noted appreciation for his work, saying "There is no doubt that we have lost an important person who made his mark over many years. I express condolences on behalf of all of us; we share in the mourning and sorrow of his family and the haredi community."